It’s safe to say that most people knew nothing about tsunamis before December 26, 2004.

Earthquakes we know. A 1989 San Francisco quake collapsed bridges and freeways and delayed the World Series.

We’ve heard about the great San Francisco quake of 1906 that unleashed fires throughout the city.

Most of us have a vague understanding of the Richter scale, at least that a quake that measures 7 or 7.5 is something serious. Every now and then, news of a small quake, a tremor, gets our attention, and the TV news shows pull out their files on the ” Big One.”

We all know about the big one. It’s the quake that will someday change the course of history like Haiti.

If an Act of God is going to take out the land of hope and dreams, you have to hope that neither you or anyone you love will be there to see it. But who knew anything about tsunamis before December 26,2004? The worst tsunamis on record took place in 1883, when a volcanic eruption on Krakatoa, an island in Southeast Asia, blew the island to bits. The eruption set off tsunamis that washed away more than 36,000 people. How many have heard about Krakatoa?

Today, we know something about tsunamis. We know that they are caused by earthquakes, that they come without warning, and they can produce towering waves that wipe out the boundary between land and sea. The question was asked early and often, where is God? It was inevitable. Throughout history, the role of God or divine powers has been debated whenever humankind encountered catastrophe .The greater the sufferings, the more human beings have invoked God’s name, sometimes for strength, sometimes in anger.

For centuries, millennia ,really, God was seen as the deliverer of violence, a cosmic grim reaper. He was believed to be delivering his will in the form of earthquakes or flood or armies.

He did so to punish the wicked or to deliver a message to humankind, in all or part. The perceived message was usually the same: change your ways.

Whether or not one believes in divine punishment, people of faith face some of the most difficult, anguishing questions that can be asked about their God whenever innocent people suffer and die.
Mohamed Khan.